By dixon9
January 6 2008

A dire affair hardly worthy of the tag “London Derby”. Grant has promised “entertaining” football but the video of this match would serve as an admirable substitute for counting sheep if you have trouble sleeping rather than as a coaching tool for youngsters eager to learn the finer points of the beautiful game.

Still, as Grant said “The job is done”.  We are now in the next round without picking up injuries nor expending too much energy. 

That’s not to say QPR disappointed.  The West London team is low down in the Championship and despite fielding around 5 players that signed very recently, their tactics and cohesion were sound.   

True, their opportunities were few and far between and apart from the solid execution of a last ditch tackle needed by Sidwell on one occasion, they presented little danger, but nevertheless, De Canio will reflect with some satisfaction that his new charges gelled well with the old. 

The red and black hoops were generally content to shoot from distance and rarely troubled Hilario but carried out their remit of ”getting in our faces” so that this wasn’t going to be a casual Saturday afternoon stroll for us. 

For our part, we were happy to pass the ball around (mostly at the back) and try and draw our opponents out more and create spaces behind. 

It was no oil painting and it was somewhat fitting that the goal itself was as unsatisfying as the game itself was. 

Pizarro, looking somewhat lost and confused in his “not striker/not midfield” role, picked the ball up and ran across near the edge of the QPR box.  Once the Peruvian had crafted the angle to shoot, his effort thumped against the base of the post and then rebounded of the back of Camp’s hand who appeared to have mis-timed his dive, with the ball heading, almost apologetically into the net. 

Pizarro was to waste a chance later on in the game.  Clean through he lashed his shot wastefully over the bar. Alex fizzed in one of his long range free-kicks that Camp did well to turn round the post and Sidwell was unlucky to see his 20 yard effort rebound off the post. Apart from that I really can’t think of any more highlights to be honest! 

Drogba came on on around 60 mins and came through unscathed but will shortly depart for the ACN along with Essien, Kalou and Mikel (Will they be available for Everton?).

Our squad is at a minimum at the moment but the good news is that the likes of Carvalho and Shevchenko are soon to return. The latter, along with Ballack appear to be on the cusp of hitting a rich vein of form. and if we are not to harvest from the current transfer window very soon, we will need them more than ever. 

MATCH HIGHLIGHTS (Very short!)

http://www.footytube.com/2008/01/05/chelsea-1-0-qpr/

Chelsea: Hilario, Ferreira, Ben-Haim, Alex, Ashley Cole, Wright-Phillips (Joe Cole 79), Obi, Sidwell, Sinclair (Drogba 60), Kalou, Pizarro (Ballack 71).
Subs Not Used: Taylor, Belletti.

Goals: Camp 28 og.

Booked: Hall.

Ref: Mike Dean (Wirral).  

Grant:

“It was a typical cup game. We did our job that is most important for me. We are in the next round.

“QPR played tactically very well. They were very clever and closed the space very well. It was a game like we expected. We held the ball most of the time. They tried to score at set-pieces. We scored one goal and created more chances but what is important is to be in the next round. In the cup it is important to do your job and we did that.”

De Canio:

“Chelsea demonstrated they are a great team.  They behaved well. I think we did what we were expected to – we were quite tidy on the pitch. We tried to take advantage of every possible chance that we had.

“I am very satisfied with the performance. We worked well and it just shows we are on course to grow in the way we want. We put them under pressure and did our job well but unluckily we didn’t win. It is never nice to lose but Chelsea are the great champions they are and they were good at creating chances.”

“I know we can do a lot better. Certainly, we had only a few training days. I’m satisfied, but there’s a lot more work to do. We kept them in suspense.”